[paganel]

> I don't think we should normalise children on platforms where the content contains political agitation

Why not? Why won't you give political agency to young adults? I'm saying this as a kid who grew up in Romania, just after Ceausescu had been executed, so throughout the '90s, I do very well remember all the political news and commentary coming my way (I was a teen), but I can't say that it bothered, not at all, it made me more connected to the adult world and hence more prepared to tackle real life just a little bit later on.

I won't comment on the other stuff, because that would make me bring back memories of watching TV1000 (a Swedish TV satellite channel) late at night on Saturdays, also in the early '90s, I won't say for what but suffice is to say that I turned out ok.

[ricardobeat]

There's hardly any parallel between the type of political content (or corn) that was available on TV in the 90s, and what's found in today's social media. It's not political commentary, it's a constant stream of pure, unfiltered manipulation, lies, brainwashing, prejudice and antisocial behaviour.

[tstrimple]

Rush Limbaugh started broadcasting in the 80's. Fox News in the 90's. Prior to that you had decades of propaganda against "communists" and anti-war protesters. Prior to that you had blatant lies about what would happen if black people got civil rights. Before that you had blatant lies about women's suffrage. The bullshit has always existed in very large quantities. The common uniting thread for the vast majority of the bullshit is conservative beliefs. They are always doing their most to make the world a worse place for some group or another.

[acdha]

> It's not political commentary, it's a constant stream of pure, unfiltered manipulation, lies, brainwashing, prejudice and antisocial behaviour.

This is exactly what conservative talk radio was like, and it radicalized a bunch of boomers – especially the ones with long car commutes who had limited counter examples. There’s a direct line between the guys joking about eating spotted owls or how feminists were too ugly to worry about rape to the modern environment, or saying that the government was discriminating against white men, but the difference now is scale and variety: now it reaches more people and there are more flavors available so the young woman who would’ve been turned off by Rush instead gets some wellness influencer talking about how birth control causes cancer.

[Sevrene]

Small things I want to add or say:

- It's not young adults, it's 15 and under. Personally I would classify 17-20something as young adult (it's a bit subjective isn't it).

- The younger children don't really care about politics honestly. Curious if you have an age that you're ok with only ensuring irl politics for children? I think age to vote is a much bigger concern for me here in terms of civil liberties.

- Parents can still make that choice for their child (unclear how this will work to me yet, to be fair).

- I've become convinced no one really practises 'politics' online. People barely even debate anymore. They argue, they perform activism, they aggitate, its what gets attention (thanks to social media). I'm worried people think this is normal, it's not- political discourse used to be much more productive. I remember when fallacies were actually brought up logically on the internet and people actually cared about the accusation.

- I did explicit rp with adults as 7 year old on MSN chatrooms back in the day :')

[andrewmutz]

Social media is full of extremist and untrue content of all types. Antivax or free birth content are just two small examples of viral content that is untrue and kills people. It has a very negative effect on adults, and adults at least have brains that are fully-developed.

Exposing kids to the firehose of misinformation on social media just poisons their brains. Political agitation is mostly political misinformation. Even among the causes online that I agree with, most of the content online is deeply biased, one-sided or inaccurate.

[nemomarx]

You can guess exactly how authorities would define "political agitation", though. dangerous things to allow them to ban.

[andrewmutz]

I don't think we should allow the government to ban political agitation, but I do think its fine to allow the government to ban children using social media

[stinkbeetle]

The most dangerous, untrue, and extremist content I've ever seen has come from governments.

Lies upon lies about WMDs and going to war for our freedoms and how we need to "liberate" Libya and fund and arm rebels and insurgents. Millions of people killed, trillions of dollars wasted and stolen.

Someone who is not completely trusting of politicians or pharmaceutical corporations, or who wants to give birth like 99.999% of humanity has, really are so far down the list of "dangerous misinformation" they don't even register.

[throwaway742]

Oh hey it's my favorite Romanian stupidpol poster. Didn't think I would run into you here.